Providing assistance for users of software products such as user productivity applications or administrator network configuration tools typically comprises displaying static help content from a local help file or online webpage server in response to user help requests. The help content is typically organized as a number of pages arranged into a navigable tree structure, for example including broad help topics at a high level and more detailed help content relating to those topics at a lower level in the tree structure. A user may then navigate though this help content tree structure in order to identify and browse the most relevant content for their current assistance needs.
More recent user assistance or help products provide dynamically updated help content and allow users to search the help content based on keywords for example. Some help products also integrate with the software product for which help is being provided in order to automatically display help content appropriate to the user's current situation within the software product. For example when a user is currently in the “Enter Bill” module of a user accounting application, a user request for help may automatically display a help page related to the “Enter Bills” module, rather than a high level topics page.